Also as a best practise (provided you have already checked your defining curves ) always use an isoparmetric section analysis for getting the true characteristic of the resulting surface ...if your surface curvature analysis is good then you will automatically get a nice reflection pattern.

Re: "Studio Surface" guidelines?

Studio Surface is (or at least was) part of a standalone set of tools originally called Shape Studio. One could purchase just that license and still create quality surfaces using only those tools.

I'm not going to dispute the info you quoted in your OP, but Studio Surface is completely different than TCM because you can create a surface similar to TCM but using fewer curves. If you have 2 curves that make a shape similar to an X, you can still end up with a 4 sided surface - TCM cannot do that, you'd have to use a different command like Swept, maybe. It's more of an all in one surfacing tool, rather than having 4 or 5 different ones. Plus you can control continuity no matter how many curves are input.

I hope that lends to further understanding some of the additional differences.

Most (not all) of the time, the results of your surfaces are going to lean closer to the underlying curves rather than which command you choose to use. The more you experiment, the more you will understand which command is the right tool for the job.